Socio-Economic Empowerment of Women Self Help Groups in Jammu, India

Abstract

The present study is the outcome of an ex-post evaluation of the Self- Help Groups (SHG) promoted and formed by the Non-government organizations (NGOs) and District rural development agency (DRDA), Jammu&Kashmir. The study evaluated the impact of socioeconomic factors on women empowerment of SHG members in Jammu Region of India. It estimated a structural equation model (SEM) and correct for ordinality in the data to account for the impact of the latent factors on women's empowerment. The SEM results reveal that for the SHG members, the economic factor is the most effective in empowering women. Greater autonomy and social attitudes also have a significant impact on women empowerment.